Private Moment
by CrimsonObsession
Summary: [X2 Pre-slash! Don't like slash, dun read.] Short piece of Wolverine/Nightcrawler pre-slash. First X-Men fic...first non-Invader Zim fic in almost two years for that matter. Someone interrupts a private moment...


[5/11/03] Okay, I've seen X2 four times since opening Friday, and plan on seeing it a hell of a lot more O_O. I'm as in love with Kurt (again, I carried quite a flame for him the years I read Excalibur and X-Men) as I am with Zim and Dib. So this is my intro to the world of X-Men fic. Yello! Hope I can bring something worthwhile to the table, and maybe inspire more Kurt slash, if only because people know they can do so much better than this O_o. Written for the Contre La Montre LJ community's challenge this week, to focus on at least three senses. Apologies for the lack of actual slash. Consider this pre-slash? Bring the pain!  
  
Disclaimer: They belong to Marvel and Fox and probably many other people, though can anyone say they truly OWN Wolverine?  
  
-Private Moment-  
  
Wind rushes through his hair, cool but not too cool, just this side of perfectly brisk. Branch after branch passes through his unique fingers, some reassuringly sturdy, rough, others thin and smooth, whipping wildly with his weight, which is gone before they can break. The chirping of crickets fills his sharply pointed ears, cicadas, the hypersonic squeak of a bat and leathery flap of its wings as it dives after its meal. It's the best kind of alone, the wood and its creatures his only companions. For one moment he can forget...  
  
He's not alone. The sweet, sickening smell of cigar smoke intrudes, giving him his only warning to the presence below. He leaps, turning a somersault before coming to land gracefully on an oak's thick branch, close to the trunk. Bark scrapes pleasantly against the soles of his feet as he wraps his toes around, securing his footing, and leans over, peering at the distinctive head of hair directly beneath him.   
  
The person standing there is no surprise. Even without the trademark cigar he'd know who it was; the man known as Wolverine is the only person in Xavier's exceptional school that can escape the detection of the hearing his elf-like ears afford him. For Wolverine's senses are even stronger, worthy of some of the animals that inhabit these woods.   
  
Logan, he reminds himself as he watches from his perch. A single name for a decidedly singular man. A breeze ruffles his dark brown hair, swishes past him and curls the smoke into an impromptu halo around his head. His simple white tee is dotted with gray, areas of drying sweat; he's probably fresh from the school's gymnasium, a place Kurt's seen him several nights before, alone and pushing himself, adding weights until the veins on his neck stand out in stark relief, the cords in his arms tight as the metal of his bones, the heat rising from his skin like a forge.   
  
Heat lingers on him even now, dwindling with the cool night air, steam rising from his shoulders, almost invisble, to mix with the wafting smoke. Suddenly Kurt feels cold.   
  
"See something worth gawking at?" Logan's voice is gruff, irritated, and he flinches involuntarily. The desire to hide momentarily takes him, and he leans back into the shadow of the overhanging leaves, indigo skin blending so perfectly with the darkness that, even to Wolverine's sight, only his eyes are visible, glowing a bright chrome yellow. For several seconds he can't meet Logan's gaze, turns from the chips of flint glinting in the other man's eyes. He steadies his nerves with a deep, cleansing breath, creeps back into the dim light of the crescent moon; scolds himself for 'creeping' anywhere, then catches sight of Wolverine's crossed, corded arms and sharp, flashing teeth digging into the thick cigar, and forgives himself this one time.   
  
He averts his eyes again. "I did not mean to snoop."  
  
"Heard that one before." Wolverine turns, his back to him once more, and Kurt leans tentatively over. Logan has gone back to watching the school. Some measure of tension leaves his shoulders. They glisten with sweat and dew, but the hard lines have softened almost immeasurably, some sense not a part of the physical five telling him that Wolverine is, at the moment, calm. At least, calm in the sense he's not going to kill anytime soon. Kurt hoped.   
  
Almost a minute passes. He wants to leave. His intrusion on what was obviously a private moment leaves him feeling guilty, and even more unwanted than he usually does around Wolverine. A dozen times he readies himself, flexes the muscles, mental and physical, to trigger a teleportation, and a dozen times he's unable to carry through. He can do nothing but stare at the man below him, and shiver as the wind grows colder.   
  
An exasperated growl breaks his trance. "What'dya want, elf?"   
  
Sudden impulse drives him to the ground. Somersaulting off branches he reaches it quickly, landing in a pose marked by his lifetime as a circus performer. Logan's eyebrow raises slightly. Impressed? Surely not.   
  
Only feet from him now, Wolverine's scent envelops Kurt. Sweat, an almost animal musk, cigar smoke and leather and an underlying and inexplicable hint of metal, the trace of a blade being pulled slowly from its scabbard. His eyes flick to Wolverine's hands, finds only rough, bare knuckles, and he breathes again.   
  
"I asked a question."  
  
He jerks back to attention, frightened gaze jumping back to Wolverine's face, trapped by Wolverine's eyes. "I-I'm sorry, I..." The lights of the massive mansion below catches his eye, and he falls, landing roughly on the wet ground, bringing chin to folded knees and flicking his tail about like a caged cat. The look he gave Wolverine was filled with self-effacing laughter and a nameless pain. "I don't know what I want."   
  
Wolverine took the cigar out of his mouth, regarded him for an eternity of an instant, a question in his raised brows and curved lip. Something took hold of Kurt, reminding him of something he should've said long ago, would've said if he hadn't been avoiding Wolverine's intimidating presence.   
  
"I'm sorry for your loss."   
  
Instantly he regretted it, as those eyes shuttered closed, a feral growl rumbling deep in Wolverine's chest. "What do you know about loss? What makes you think-"  
  
"My eyes may be different, Herr Logan, but I am not blind." Kurt cast his gaze down, shivered once more as the dew continued to soak his pants and feet. When he looked back up, Logan's breath caught at the pain lurking in his eyes. "And I know from loss, mein freund."   
  
Involuntarily Logan reached for him, found only a fleeting hint of skin, silken smoothness broken by raised lines, an intake of air and the stench of brimstone and sulfur.  
____ 


End file.
